A Soldier of the Night
by ageoftesla
Summary: "Because he's the hero we deserve. But not the one we need right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not a hero. He's a silent guardian. A watchful protector." (AU Jack Morrison part of Blackwatch)
1. Chapter 1

A Soldier of the Night

by Age of Tesla

* * *

"Today's the day, Jack?" Ana Amari's black as night hair had grown down below her neck during the last months of the crisis. It was the longest it'd been since the crisis began, and she supposed that this time, she'd keep it and let it grow rather than cutting it. She often cut it short during the Omnic War, for practical reasons mostly, but now the whole world needed to move past it, and to her, personally, the state of her hair was as good a symbol of moving on as anything else. And at any rate, Ana preferred her hair middle length, as opposed to short. On the inside, she hoped her daughter Fareeha would come to see it much the same.

Jack Morrison was a hero of the crisis. He'd never say that, it was always 'soldier' with him, but maybe one day he'd be made to see himself that way. For the time being, he was under serious consideration for a big promotion, from an enlisted soldier, a Sergeant First Class in the United States Army, to Strike Commander of Overwatch. "Yeah," he said. Today was the day, but something didn't sit right with him, and Jack confined himself to a basement office in Overwatch Headquarters in Geneva for hours, thinking of whether to accept or not. About whether the United Nations would even give him a say in the matter, because there was someone else just as qualified, if not more so, for the job than he was. And it didn't sit right with him that Reyes, who trained him, who led him in battle and in life, could be both considered for the promotion and turned down.

Something was wrong. Ana could sense it, always could when it came to the serious things on Jack's mind, or anyone else in the Overwatch family, for that matter. And in the past fifteen years, that was what they'd become. A family. A group that looked out for each other. She couldn't turn a blind eye. She couldn't just look the other way. "You sound troubled. Feeling anxious, or is it something else?" That would be the only probing question before she dived right into it. Blue eyes sharp and focused on something he was thinking about, Jack waited a second before nodding. So it was something else. "You don't think you're cut out for this position."

"Maybe," Jack sighed. "Maybe not. But i know Gabe would have been a better choice." When Jack spoke from his heart, whether he was right or not didn't matter. He had determination and he was a fighter. A soldier, and a good soldier, but there were things that he cared about, that he was rash about, and although everyone in Overwatch knew that about him behind closed doors, Ana took a seat, invited Jack to sit down as well, realizing the rest of the world didn't know that. She wondered how much of him they did see, how much of it was the real hero, and how much was the more-than-real hero.

She wondered how much of Gabriel Reyes the world had seen. "I saw him upstairs. He's not happy about this, and that's not what he told me, but he's not happy about this. He thinks he earned the Strike Commander position." Gabriel was as much of a hero as Jack or anyone else was during the crisis, perhaps more so, being the leading man on most of Overwatch's operations. He just wasn't as famous, and for a man from Los Angeles to be overshadowed by some guy from nowhere, Indiana, and as much as anyone liked to make light of it, it did hurt. Gabriel didn't want to talk to her upstairs. He didn't want to talk to anyone, not now, but sooner or later he'd have to. Someone, something, had to give before this Strike Commander thing got blown out of proportion and became a battle of egos.

Reyes was as much of a fighter as Jack, too. And they were on the same side. "He's not wrong," the man of the day said in response. "I might have earned it too, but it doesn't mean he didn't. And it sure doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it." It was a hard situation. The Secretary General chose Jack. In a vote, the whole world chose Jack. But it wasn't him against Reyes, Jack wasn't going to let this turn into the fight the whole world feared it'd be. It brought a light and a smile to Ana's face to hear, a look of approval, however begrudging. This wasn't going to be Reyes against Morrison. It was going to be the two of them against the world.

And it was going to be hard. It always was when the United Nations made up its mind. "So if you're not taking the job," Ana thought out loud, "how are you going to do this? You already told them what you think. You already told the UN that Gabriel would be the better choice here, and they're not listening." Big government bodies were stubborn, resistant to change. The bigger they were, the harder they were to move, and as the Earth would have it, the United Nations was the biggest government of them all. Still, changes started small, and it only took two people to honestly believe something in order to make it true. They just had to be willing to fight for it. Had to be willing to win for it.

And someone had to be willing to lose. "I got something," Jack said, standing up to go talk to Gabe right now. He had an ace in the hole, something he could use to force the UN's hand. To test how willing they were to bend. If his bet was right, everyone won. If his bet was right, Reyes would lead Overwatch and that would be the end of it. But if he was wrong, there was no telling how far the fallout might go. But Jack had a feeling he was right.

"What kind of something?" Ana asked, curious.

"An old friend of mine, we grew up together." He remembered loving her, remembered it from afar and from close up, even admitting to her it not long after his mother found out. But at eighteen, he wanted to be a man before he could be hers, something about proving his worth, to himself or to her, he didn't remember anymore. Didn't really want to remember either. Jack wanted to get in the army, do his time, and get out and back to the little life. Four years, he aimed for. Just wait four years. He sighed a breath of relief that he never actually asked that of her. "Her name was Sarah."

The nature of her colleague's backup plan was eminently clear. Ana realized he didn't have one. That if he couldn't change the UN's mind, he'd walk away. One way or another, he intended to force their hand.


	2. Chapter 2

A Soldier of the Night

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 2

* * *

It was called Blackwatch, Overwatch's shadow. A little bit on the nose, but it was also an old Scottish army group back in the twentieth century. Jack wasn't allowed to make the association, even in secret, because there was scarcely ever a true secret, but Blackwatch was close. He kept it from Gabriel, he kept it from Ana, he kept it from everybody but the agents directly reporting to him, kept them a secret from everyone else, and kept himself secret from the rest of his agency. His whole life was secrets now, and as much as it hurt not to talk to anyone, he did sign up for this. Though he still couldn't believe he got talked into it.

And he definitely couldn't share it with her over a pay phone. An international call from Cairo to Borden, Indiana. "Who is this?" a tender, soft voice came over the phone, which bent the strong soldier over and pushed his forehead onto the phone box. How he'd longed to hear that voice again. "Hello?" after a while, she spoke again, perhaps wondering if this was just a prank. And it wasn't, and maybe that was the cruelest prank of all. Maybe it really would be better just to say nothing.

No, how could it be? "Sarah, it's me. It's Jack." He had to talk to her one last time, because after today, after all the false paperwork got finished, there wouldn't be much talking to anyone anymore. Not with civilians.

"Jack..." she struggled to remember at first, but it was hard not to have heard about him in Borden. "Oh my god," her voice cracked. She knew a world renowned hero. "Jack, it's been so long, how are you?" Perhaps her lot had improved over the last few years, in the years since Jack went through the whole Strike Commander fiasco. But even if Sarah was in the same place as before, and she probably was, considering Jack still knew her phone number, it was still who she was to worry about him first. That was everyone in Borden, himself included, willing to put their own problems down to help others with theirs.

Jack had problems. He was about to have a lot of problems to deal with, in unclean ways. He couldn't tell her, but he couldn't lie to her either. "It's hard," he said, disappointed in himself that he couldn't say any better. "Things are hard over here." Would that he could say anything about Blackwatch, that it wouldn't get her killed just for the phone being tapped. "But I'm hanging on."

"Always a fighter," she said so cheerfully. Shortly, she choked up. "I'm having trouble myself, too. And I'm trying, but sometimes, I wish I had someone to help." He shouldn't have waited this long to make this call. He should have taken his chance when he had it, Jack thought as he listened to Sarah quietly sobbing through the line. Sarah, I'm here for you. How badly he wanted to say that. Wanted to be able to say that. But that time, that window, was past. "But you know, just knowing you remembered me after all these years, it helps. All the years in the army, all those programs they put you through. You're still the same man I knew. Just, bigger now."

But he wasn't a hero. If he ever was one, he wasn't anymore.

"Was there something you wanted, Jack?" He wanted to have his life back. He wanted the years in the army back. Wanted to go back and think things through about the promotion he was offered at the end of the crisis, and the height of his powers. He wanted, he told himself, to be anywhere else but right where he was. To be anything else than Blackwatch's secret keeper. To do it all over again, even though he knew he'd do it all the same. That he'd end up here even in another time. "I'm sorry. I don't have much to give if there was. And, I hope this doesn't come across too... too much about me-"

"No. No, Sarah, don't worry about that," he reassured her, "I just wanted to hear your voice again." Just hear her voice one last time, he didn't tell her.

"I was hoping that, maybe, you were calling because you wanted to come back." Four years, he'd told himself so long ago. Four years and he'd be back, before he got caught up in being a better soldier, in being a hero. Caught up in an illusion that turned real. A fantasy that turned into the Omnic Crisis. A dream that led him here. He got caught up, and he forgot that he ever wanted out. But he told himself a long time ago that in four years, he'd go back and marry her. He lied to himself.

But Sarah deserved better. She deserved the truth. "No. That's not why I called. I called," he paused. To say goodbye. To hear her voice one last time. To know she was still alive. "I called because I can't come back. Because I have to disappear. And before I did, I wanted to know that you were okay." But it sounded like she wasn't. It was hard to know what to say and not to say, and until Jack figured it out, he held the phone tight to the side of his head, saying nothing. "I need to keep you safe."

It sounded like a lie. It might have been a lie, but he didn't want it to be. He wanted this, leaving her, to be the best choice, he needed it to be, no matter how much he thought stood to go wrong, because couldn't take the other one. "It'd be a lot easier if you were here," Sarah reasoned with him. And she was right. It'd be so much easier to keep her safe if he was right there at her side, in the middle of nowhere, with nobody looking to do them harm. "Look, I'm sorry, Jack. I'm not trying to make you think you have to do anything. Don't worry about me. I'll make it through."

"Just you?"

Her sniffling struck at his heart. "Just me. Jack. You've got a lot going on. If I don't give up, you don't give up either."

He hung up. He hung up without saying goodbye. He left before he said his peace, again. If there was a fight to be had, if she was worth fighting for, he'd given up that fight. He was a man of secrets now. He had another fight, against terrorists. He knew what fear was, and he was afraid. Sarah's husband was dead. Her children were dead. She was alone, and before long, she'd be dead. Jack was afraid of that.

He was afraid that he would be the cause. But his real fear was that, when she was gone, he wouldn't care anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 3

* * *

In the waning crescent moonlight, in the fields of France, Jack sat in his car, parked near a kilometer away from the country house of one of the last friends he had. Gerard Lacroix, a special agent in charge of counter-terrorist operations in France and all of continental Europe. He was good at what he did, which was frustrating Talon. They'd tried to kill him, many times before, and he had some close calls, but nothing major. He'd been called away from home again, to deal with a base found at the heel of Italy, and he wouldn't return for another few days. There was a light in the house, and as long as it was turned on, Jack knew Gerard's wife was waiting, unable to sleep.

Ameile Lacroix, nee Tremblay, was a lovely woman, and the two were perfect for each other, in as much as a civilian could hold a marriage with a soldier. She always waited, and always worried, as any good wife would for her husband. She had a talent for the performing arts, a bit of a dilettante, but the one thing she was committed to most was other people. She'd been at the Overwatch sites a few times - of course, never the Blackwatch sites - and she loved to make people smile. She was good at it. She could make Jack smile, even when he was just watching from afar. Like now. She was a good person at heart. And that was why he was here tonight.

As he looked down at the intelligence report about Talon, reading and rereading their plans to drag Gerard out to Taranto a thousand miles away, the complex channels they used to leak the base location and the calculations they ran, to see when was the last moment they could still evacuate the entire personnel before he and his team arrived. And, the part that disturbed Jack the most, the risk assessment that Blackwatch would eventually find these exact plans, when, and how much force they'd muster to protect the house in the night. This was the night. Jack could feel it, and it also said so in the report. He'd be the only thing standing between Amelie and the world of espionage.

There was nothing in the report about why they wanted her. There were some obvious guesses, and by and large, they were tossed out for being too obvious, but when Overwatch had tossed out all its ideas, it became apparent that the people at Talon just had greater creativity. Which was a problem, because since they didn't know what exactly Talon planned to do, they were already at a disadvantage to stop it. And unbeknownst to most everyone, even Reyes, who was in charge of everything, Blackwatch couldn't be quite the element of surprise all the heroes were counting on to save the night.

Likely, it wasn't for a ransom. If Talon needed money, they could get it through economic subterfuge, or fraud, or even something as mundane as a bank robbery, though they scarcely did anything mundane. It likely was not simply to have a hostage, because if forces above even Reyes and Overwatch's heads got involved, one woman's life would invariably be viewed as inconsequential. No matter how wrong that was to the closer people. To Jack, and Gerard, and their makeshift family. The closest anyone could think was that it was all a ploy to throw Gerard off his game. To tilt him with an attack where his guard was weakest. And maybe to shift where he kept his guard, to shake him off their tail.

But it could always be something even worse.

Together with the intelligence report, Jack had some personal documents, pictures mostly, of the inside of the house. And they were thorough. In one album, in just a small selection from the album, there was more detailed information about the house than in the architect's blueprint. Jack had that too anyway, because as long as there was still time to act, there was no such thing as too much information. Not in his world. And that was why he was here tonight. To keep a good person, to keep an innocent person, out of his cruel world. And Talon was coming to drag her in.

Strewn in with the photos was a wedding invitation. Jack kept it all these years as his only personal reminder that it happened. Reading about it anywhere else felt like gathering intelligence. Because he sat it out. Talon wasn't going to take a break that day, and someone had to keep up the vigilance.

Around midnight, the light went out. He gave it another fifteen minutes until she was sound asleep, preparing his equipment, which wasn't much. It was important to move light and silently, so Jack left his shotgun and shells on the back seat, and he strode through the black of night screwing a suppressor onto his sidearm.

He picked the lock on the front door and slipped in, easing it shut. He snuck a high capacitance shock probe inside the lock hole, pulled the wire through and hooked it up to a wall outlet, and then thought he may as well lock the door anyway. Jack looked around, flashlight active and dim over his shoulder, and he found a bookcase to drag over to barricade the door. Meticulously, organized, he pulled the books off the shelves, and laid the bookcase on its side, to trip up anyone climbing the window as well.

It was going to be a siege, he thought as he touched his spare magazines, figuring how long he could hold out, how many kidnappers he could fight off. Two shots each, one to the head, one to the heart, he had enough bullets for twenty-five. Fifteen if he missed a few shots, and it was near certain that Talon was sending its people in armed. Whether they'd carry silencers or not, Jack didn't know, didn't know if they had any reason to. Talon's grunts were coming to grab Amelie, they had nothing to fear from a little noise.

There were windows upstairs, other possible breach points. One of them was in an empty bedroom, but he couldn't drag anything heavy through the hallway without risking waking the sleeper. He had to block that window with something light, and he looked around the living room, and he saw the piano. He knew where Gerard kept his toolbox, knew there was a wirecutter inside. He took the wirecutter, he took a handful of nails, and he stood looking over the piano, opened it up to peek inside. Jack considered his options.


	4. Chapter 4

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 4

* * *

Her head hurt, a lingering feeling of... something. A drug of some kind. It was hard to say, Amelie couldn't think clearly, her head pounding. She propped herself up on her elbow, rubbed her forehead, waiting for the dizziness to go away, and soon enough she could at least see again. That was something.

She reached over to touch the other side of the bed. Cold.

 _Stay safe, my love. Come home in one piece._

She rubbed her eyes, the shapes of her bedroom coming into focus. She could see the posts of her bed, the cross in the middle of the window that overlooked the backyard. Amelie clutched at her stomach, looking outside for the eastern rising sun, but it wasn't there. The daylight was coming down more direct, and her stomach was rumbling. She'd woken up late, and the drugs that were wearing off, she figured must have been to induce sleep. Of course. The pills. Maybe she took more of them than the bottle recommended, and she reached in the drawer to read the label on the back, with all the advice and precautions on it that seldom made a difference. But she supposed they would now.

Side effects. Overdose effects. She checked there first, and was relieved to see nothing severely out of the ordinary, though it was probably best to call a doctor at least. At least see if she'd even need to go to a clinic for a more thorough checkup. Calling Angela would have been her first move, but in the back of her mind, in some part of it that was still lucid, Amelie already knew what Angela would say.

The clock struck a quarter past noon. Amelie had woken up really late, and she glanced down at the bottle of sleeping pills again, and she couldn't help but crack a smile. If nothing else, she could be sure that they worked. But it was time to make breakfast, or lunch, as it were. Being off her schedule threw her mind for a loop sometimes. Being on more drugs than safety suggested didn't help. Being on drugs at all didn't help with her cognition, but as hard as she tried to resist it, it did help with her stress.

Heaven only knew how she needed help dealing with that. No matter how strong she tried to be herself.

Amelie made lunch for herself, a sandwich of tomatoes from the garden and lettuce from the local grocery store, with a few slices of ham and cheese in between. The bread, she baked yesterday, enough for two. Her and Gerard. She'd never get used to cooking for just herself, however fondly she remembered that daily scramble back in university in Paris. Cooking for two just made her feel happier. Made her feel more complete. Like she was part of something. She took her lunch and sat down on the piano bench, facing away from the ivory keys with her food.

The bookshelf across the drawing room was sheer straight against the wall, though she swore it was crooked last night just before she went to bed. Must have been the drugs, she figured, since she certainly push it back all the way when she and Gerard first moved in, and just let it go as she got the telephone and called Angela's work number at the Gibraltar Watchpoint. Biting, with the fresh crunch of the breaking lettuce spine and the splash of tomato juice filling her mouth, between dial tones, and swallowing what she chewed every three, Amelie was soon answered by the digital voice of Athena.

"Good afternoon, Miss Lacroix. Doctor Ziegler isn't in her office right now, but I can get her attention if it's urgent."

"No, no, it's," Amelie started, trailing off when she remembered just who she was about to be dealing with. There was no way, really, to downplay what was going on. She was drugged with her own sleeping medication, and in a bigger dose than she remembered. "Actually, Angela would think it's urgent," Amelie admitted to the AI, and Athena promptly called for Angela Ziegler over the communication system in the Watchpoint.

In a few minutes, the phone line clicked, and the white noise picked up again, the clack of a door shutting in the background. A sweet voice, soft and dutiful, came through, "What can I do for you, Amelie?"

This was it. No hiding it now. "I think I've been drugged."

"I can get to Annecy in two hours," was Angela's immediate response. For someone with the codename "Mercy," she treated medical issues with absolutely none, and that was to be expected from Overwatch's chief of medical engineering and an exceptional Overwatch field medic both. She took things seriously, but in the time they've gotten to know each other, the soft features of her face, the tenderness of her voice and the glow of her pale golden hair, it was easy to forget how seriously she took things. Her eyes were sharp, though. A deep blue that could be ice if they needed to, and they often did. More often than anyone would like. Angela herself especially, but that was the job she signed up for. Saving lives was nothing to take lightly. And she never did.

If she thought she'd have to fly to Annecy on a moment's notice, she'd do it. Amelie wasn't entirely opposed to it. Angela was firm and strong when the time called, when someone's life was on the line, and she was good company otherwise. "I was about to head to a hospital myself, actually," Amelie said. It was the effects, not the causes, that she was worried about, but the causes did seem odd enough to her to warrant investigation. Not, perhaps, by Overwatch, but maybe there'd been something burgled from the house that the local authorities could track down more efficiently. And besides, "It's just sleeping pills. I might have taken too many myself, now that I think about it."

Not a sigh of relief on the other end of the call, but Angela was silent in her thoughts. If it was sleeping pills, it could hardly have been an accident, because Amelie wasn't an idiot. Still, that didn't preclude her doing it herself, intentionally, and just now trying to hide it. If that was the case, Angela thought, she could understand it. Her husband Gerard had been sent out to deal with a Talon base that popped up in Gallipoli, Italy. The location leaked, some satellite photos that'd gotten in Overwatch's hands before Talon's clutches, and as both operational director and a field agent in his own right, Gerard took his flight immediately.

So maybe Amelie was just concerned for his safety. Maybe she feared that this was the time something would go wrong, and maybe she was even right. So if she took the extra pills herself, Angela could hardly blame her. But she could recommend going to get it checked out. "A hospital," she said. "That works too. What kind of sleeping pills are they?" Of course, the least drastic measure was if she knew the pills and their effects herself, and could just tell Amelie not to worry. That least drastic measure, that'd be a lot off both their plates.

She took the bottle of pills out of the nightstand drawer, and phone still in her hand, read the label again. She couldn't pronounce some of it. Fluency in English wasn't the same as fluency in Medicine, but Angela could parse what she said well enough. Amelie heard a lot of "hmm"ing and "ah"ing, and didn't know what to make of it. At least it wasn't "that's a problem" or "go to the hospital" or even worse, "two hours." And there was something else, faint, but the kind of thing Amelie's ears had been trained to pick up on.

It was music. It was festive.

Back in the living room, her worries about being maliciously drugged dismissed, she asked about the music, and with that in mind, what was so important to tear Angela of all people out of her office.

"It's my birthday." That's right, Amelie thought. It was. She was twenty-nine now, an accomplished, hard working twenty-nine, but unless there was an emergency, she'd have to take a break some time. "We got a new recruit, too. Our youngest ever, very energetic. I thought I'd show her around Gibraltar. And I'd never hear the end of it from her if I spent my special day at my desk, you know?"

"Happy birthday, Angela," Amelie eventually got in. And after she finished eating, set the plate down on a coffee table, she opened up the top of the grand piano, put the phone on speaker and found a good acoustic place to put it, and started playing something she'd been transcribing for a few days. She didn't have all of it, skipping over a few chunks of the middle, but it was a well known piece of music from the fifties, and Angela at least recognized its beginning and ending right away.

It was only a few minutes long, but she was very grateful for it. Though there was something curious that came up a few times, and when the song was done, Amelie went back to one of the weird sounding parts. She tapped the keys slowly, one at a time, ascending the chromatic scale. The C sharp key made a clicking sound, but no note. Amelie looked into the box of the piano, pressing on the C sharp key, watching the hammer drop.

"Huh, that's curious," she said. This might have warranted investigation after all. She looked back to the bookshelf, pushed flat and straight. She looked back to the C sharp wire, cut out. "There's a string missing." It wasn't the drugs after all. Or if it was, that was also a part of it. Someone had broken in.

* * *

AN: From this point, time will no longer be straightforward. Chapter 5 will occur before chapter 4.


	5. Chapter 5

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 5 (this chapter is set before chapter 4)

* * *

His choices were simple. He either cut the wire or he didn't. The choice wasn't the problem, the problem was that Talon's grunts should have shown up by now, but they haven't. The problem was that the intelligence that told him they would be here by now was faulty, and now he was stuck making poor choices. And this choice whether to cut the wire was nothing if not a poor choice. But that was the job he signed up for, the job Jack let the UN relegate him into. Making poor choices - hard choices - that no one else would. He picked a wire and cut it. The middle C sharp wire. He didn't know much about music theory, but C sharp just seemed like something no one would ever use.

Jack took the wire and some nails from the toolbox up to the empty bedroom. No hammer, that'd be too loud, he was just going to push the nails into the wall with his fingers. He was strong enough and built sturdy enough to do it. The Soldier Enhancement Program, an American military project to create chemically enhanced super soldiers, made him something more than human. He never expected he would be a part of it, certainly not to be hand chosen, but looking back, it was something he didn't think now he could have passed it up. And looking back and thinking back now, perhaps he should have. For what it was, it was helpful. Practical. But it changed him, and that change weighed on him. He wasn't like everybody else, he wasn't just a regular soldier, and the world came to expect more from him.

Where times were tough, Jack could be tougher. In a time of widespread crisis, in the time of the Omnic Crisis, he could be the leader the world needed, but he always thought they deserved better. They deserved someone who'd stand up for morality and for principle when it was slipping out of everyone's hands. The world deserved someone like Gabriel Reyes to lead them, who could hold on to the things that made everyone human, and hold against the things that would make them human no more.

The wire trap on the window was a simple diagonal cross to snag a rappelling breach. It didn't take long to set it up, and Jack went on to check the rest of the entrances, saving Amelie's bedroom for last. He walked in on her, sound asleep, dreaming about something, he hoped. Maybe the wedding that he missed, maybe the first time Gerard came home after a strike against Talon. Maybe the first time he came home from a Talon strike at him and he survived. Their years together weren't easy, but they were solid and true. Only now, they needed help. Only now, neither of them could know it. And it might have been that not knowing that was weighing on her mind. Jack looked on the nightstand and saw a bottle of sleeping pills.

Maybe Amelie wasn't dreaming of anything at all.

Something was amiss, that much was sure, and as the night dragged on, it started to feel like Talon wasn't going to show up at all. There were a few things that could mean, neither of them good, but that was where he was at, as far as intelligence went. Either his intelligence was lacking, or it was compromised. Both reflected poorly. Both boded poorly, but having a mole was much worse. He'd have to look into this when he got the chance, in a few days time, after some rest, when his mind was keen again, because this vigil was taxing.

Jack passed the time double checking and triple checking the entrances and the barricades he put up. Really just to keep himself thinking of something concrete, and keep his mind and thoughts from wandering by their own devices. And everything was still boarded up, it made no difference how many times he looked, how many times he tapped his knuckles against the barriers he put up. No matter how many times he passed the clock and heard it tick, the only thing that changed was how much of the night was left, how much time Talon had left to make its move. How much time left before he figured out they weren't going to.

And they didn't. The whole night, they didn't.

Soon, it was five in the morning and Jack had a problem. The house looked ransacked, because he ransacked it. The house looked like it was prepared for a siege, because he expected one, but it never happened. The house looked like a crime scene, because it was. And even though it was for the best of reasons, insofar as Jack had in mind, it was still a crime scene, it was still an artifact of Blackwatch, and he had to clean it up. He took out his phone, a turn of the millennium creation still used for being cheap and disposable, and he called a dispatcher, someone whose job it was to be awake at all times to coordinate the agency's actions.

In an electronically filtered voice, Jack asked for an agency janitor. He needed one as soon as possible to help clean the mess before Amelie woke up, and the dispatcher sent one, to arrive in an hour and a half. It was the best they could do. And there was nothing to be done about the piano wire, which Jack hurried up to remove, the first beams of daylight coming through upstairs. He checked the time, nearing six o'clock AM. And then how long the cleaning job itself would take.

After he got the lighter lifting out of the way, he stepped into Amelie's room again, and noticed her mouth was open. She was talking in her sleep. His French wasn't great, and her voice was beautiful and soft. He looked down at the bottle of sleeping pills again, picked them up and read that they were effective for about six hours. He picked it up, contents inside rattling, each pill against each other and against the plastic shell. She stirred. She heard it.

Jack opened the bottle, poured two pills onto his palm. "I'm so sorry," he whispered, hoping maybe that she could hear him. He shut his eyes and covered Amelie's mouth, pushed the pills in her mouth until she choked them down. "So sorry," he muttered, as if she could hear. As if she might forgive him. He stood watch over her, in the light just the same as the dark, as she sank back into her slumber. "I'm sorry," he said, that maybe in a dream, she'd know that he was here, and that she would know why. Because he didn't dare even dreaming that himself. "I love you," he said, and whether he meant it or not, it made no difference. Whether he meant it or not, he was either acting on it already, or he wasn't.

And sleep found her.

And he waited for his janitor to arrive. And in another two hours, he was gone.

* * *

AN: Chronological sequence will be 1, 2, 3, **5, 4,** 6


	6. Chapter 6

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 6

* * *

She looked at him through the bars. The guards handed her the key to the cell and left the two of them alone. Jack had more than proven his willingness to cooperate with the robbery investigation, even held up his end of the deal to return to face trial. But that was before. Then he faced another trial, a much more serious one, for exposing the Blackwatch program, and it was such a small slip up. Such a small thing, a simple little piano wire that he should have left alone, but cut. But Jack dealt his justice, and now he faced it. Amelie opened the door, closed it behind her even though there was no use and no need.

"Can I?" she asked to share the bench in the cell, taking little steps closer. Her ballooned belly told all that needed to be said. Jack slid over, and she sat down. There were markings on the wall. Tally marks, counting days, and a few big dividers that she couldn't begin to guess that those were about. But the last of them, and she didn't really even need to count the marks to figure it out, was roughly two hundred seventy days behind.

"Today's the day?" Jack said. His daily counted started as soon as he was detained. The big marks were, to the best of what intelligence gathering he still had, the days Gerard came home, and each one was subtly different, in a code only he ever knew and even now hardly remembered. But the last one fell on a day of triumph. After that day, Talon was no more. They were safe. The world was safe. At least until the next threat popped up, whenever that would be.

Amelie patted her stomach. "Today's the day," she said. "I have a few hours. Thought I'd spend them with you." They hadn't spoken in months. No one had really spoken with Jack in months, not unless it was under oath, and this was the first chance it seemed anyone had taken to hear what was on his mind. And he had plenty, he just wasn't so keen to share. That was what Blackwatch had made him. A recluse. A spider. She hated spiders, once. Once, she was scared to death of them. She'd gotten over it a long time ago, but she held onto that old fear, just enough to joke about it. Just enough to let others tease her about it sometimes.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

If he thought about it, it was her fault. She brought up the missing piano string all on her own accord, he found out that much at the proceedings. If he let himself think about it, she had the concrete walls and steel bars to be sorry for, because she was the one that got the entire investigation started. She was the one who pushed him over the edge, to hunt down his own people, to root out the moles. Talon had a hand too, of course, but they were extinct now. Blackwatch was near extinct now, too. Jack was the last one left in the program. Not for much longer, but for now at least.

If he thought about it, she was to blame. So he didn't think about it. "Don't be," he said. He already made up his mind on who to blame, and it wasn't her. It wasn't anyone but himself, because if for a single night, he had better judgment, none of this would have happened. It didn't matter what the circumstances were, who betrayed him, who gave him faulty intelligence, what Talon was planning and what they knew, none of it would have made a difference if Jack didn't cut the wire. That, he decided, was his choice. No one else's.

But what was the last time he fought for anything he believed in? When he thought about that, it was too long ago. It was thirteen years ago. It was when the crisis ended, and the United Nations was choosing a Strike Commander. He hadn't fought that hard for anything since.

"Why not?" Amelie asked him. "You wouldn't be here if not for me."

"Or for myself. Amelie, I screwed up." His shoulders slumped, and the words left his mouth like he was deflating. "I did a lot of things wrong," Jack said, about the agents he trusted and the decisions he made. All the poor decisions he made. The world was a safer place now, but how much was that was because of him and how much despite him, he only wished he knew better than he thought. Only, he did. And in some small part, it was because of him, and in that small part, it was all because of him. And it was because he saved her. It was impossible to know how things might have gone differently, if somehow, Talon could have used her to get Gerard out of the picture. Or if, maybe, their whole plan was fruitless from the start.

But she was alive. And by and large, she was unhurt. That had to be enough to make a difference.

Jack's hand reached up, knuckles gingerly brushing against Amelie's protruded stomach. She grabbed him by the wrist and turned his hand around, that his palm feel what she felt of her child. "Congratulations," he said, tearfully off hand. He was sure she'd heard it enough by now.

"It's all thanks to you," she said. If Jack wouldn't connect the dots, she could. If he wouldn't admit to himself that he was a hero, she'd hold him in that regard herself. Because he was a hero. Because he saved her when no one else could. Thwarted a plot that no one else saw. That even Gerard fell for. No amount of just being a soldier, or just doing a job was going to change what Jack was in her mind. That night was never going to leave her, never stop haunting her, and she didn't want it to. There was no denying how the night Talon attacked and destroyed her house changed her life, and all told, it changed her life for the better.

Dreams, not nightmares, she had about that night. She didn't wake up feeling vulnerable, or alone, or helpless. Because that night, she wasn't. That night, she had a hero. Someone watching out for her, and she betrayed him.

"I did what I had to," Jack told her, withdrawing his hand. "You did what you had to."

"And look where it's gotten you," Amelie protested. "You deserve better than this. You deserve better than a life in the shadows, in the darkness. You deserve to have your day in the light, with the rest of us. Every day, with the rest of us. Not this. Not this, sitting on this bench, wasting away, waiting for your day to die. You didn't do anything to deserve this."

"But I have," Jack reminded her. Of all the people he killed, whether on his word, or with his own hands. The traitors, the terrorists, every one of them intent on doing harm every bit as much as he was. Most of them, more. But he killed them, got them killed, signed their death warrant, and that went not only for his enemies, but for his former allies. For the people he used to call friends. People he put his faith in. People who sold him out.

"They knew what they signed up for," Amelie said. She read the reports, in her downtime, over and over again until she understood them. Everyone Jack killed was a combatant, one way or another. Every one of them knew the hazards that came with their job, with their world. Every one of them knew their actions had consequences.

"So did I." For thirteen years, for even longer than that, he knew why he took the job with the army, with the Enhanced Soldier Program, with the Peacekeeper Army, with Overwatch. With Blackwatch. It was to do the things no one else could. To do the bad things, so no one else had to. To be the bad guy when the world was watching, and the hero when they weren't. To turn darkness against darkness. No matter the consequences. "So did I," Jack repeated. His actions had to have consequences.

* * *

AN: Chronological sequence will be 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, 7

This chapter was hard to write.


	7. Chapter 7

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 7

* * *

Jack looked up from the cold stone floor. The key clacked inside the locked, turned, and tumbled, and the gate's steel ground aside over the rock and slid back, clattering shut.

"Today's the day?" Amelie asked him. She had one hand in her pocket, holding on to something. She kept a tiny bit of her pregnant bigness from the last time he saw her, only a little bit, and she looked radiant as ever. But the tone of her voice was somber. Wracked with guilt that Jack thought he'd talked out of her so many months ago. A remorse for the way things happened, even though she hadn't had any choice but the first, and even though she made the right one. A gravity that fitted what would come in a couple of hours.

Jack nodded. "Today's the day," he said. He was going to be executed.

It had to happen eventually. Up until now, the hearings were endless. He watched too many judges recuse themselves halfway through the proceedings. He watched too many defense attorneys unable to instill doubt that he'd done the things he'd done, and he watched too many prosecution attorneys stammer and stall because nobody wanted this. The hero that Jack once was, nobody wanted it to end like this. But it was going to. It was bound to. He put the world in a hard spot. He forced their hand. Sluggishly swallowing some spit that built up as he thought, he wondered what Ana was up to right now.

"How are they going to do it?" Amelie asked him, sitting down beside him and reaching behind his back, hand on his shoulder. It always just felt better, not looking at each other, not looking into each other's eyes. Like old friends, just that something had happened between them. And something had happened between them. One long night, while Gerard was away. A night that changed everything. A night she still dreamed of to this day.

He sighed. "Injection." All things considered, it wasn't such a bad way to go. He'd just sit down in a chair, and they stick the needle in his arm, and then, done. It was simple. Clean. Painless. It was better than he'd done. It was a mercy he didn't deserve, according to himself, but it wasn't up to him. The last thing that was up to him was tearing Blackwatch down. Every agent, every asset, looking for the bad ones, those with subverted loyalties. Most of them were clean. Most of them could be phased into Overwatch and integrated like that's what they'd been doing their whole lives. But the dirty few. That was what this was about.

She took her hand out of her pocket, and she unfurled something, metal and springy. "I got you something," she said, holding up a necklace in front of him. He looked, brows furrowed, and he took it in his hands when she let it go. It was made of steel wire. It was crudely made, and Jack picked at the tape that he assumed was covering the loose ends where it was cut.

"Where did you get this?" he asked her, pulling it like a chain around his fingers.

"I made it myself," Amelie said, a demure smile on her face. "The wire, I had to ask Gerard to pull some," she puffed her cheeks, scanned the floor of the jail cell trying desperately not to say 'strings.' "Favors," she settled on, "with the police. Got it out of evidence."

"Is this?" Jack asked, not the whole question, but just enough to let her know he was thinking it. Her eyes were watering up.

"It is," she told him. "Half." She was wearing the other half around her neck. She leaned onto his side, and he lowered his head onto hers. Together, they shut their eyes, and she held him tight, as if to take a leap of faith. They sat still, holding each other, holding on for these last few hours before the death march began. Amelie wanted to tell him she'd miss him, wanted to say something, but there was little to say at this point. Little that they hadn't said already, or needed to say again.

"What's it for?" Jack asked about the necklace. He looked and noticed hers, a perfect match, and he faintly smiled. It crept onto his lips, under his attention, and just out of his control. He lifted his head off of hers for a second, just enough to slip his strand of wire around his neck. Amelie felt the bottom curve dangling against her shirt, heard it brushing and swaying.

"It's for after," she said softly. "After you're gone." After we're both gone. Amelie wiped a trail of tears off her face. "I don't know if you believe in that. Honestly, I don't know if I do either. But I want to believe." She held Jack tight, both arms wrapped around him around his chest. "When I'm gone, I want to find you. If this helps," she trailed off, still hoping to put off the idea of moving on, of living without him, until he actually died. Because the two of them could make hours last forever. "And if it doesn't. If there isn't. Then at the very least, we can both take this with us to the grave."

Jack had closed his eyes. He tried to picture what the afterlife looked like, what he even thought it might look like. The last time he paid it any mind was a long time ago. Back in Indiana, an hour every Sunday for a few years, maybe, he remembered something. It went over his head at the time, and recalling it all now was hard, and it came back faint and distant, but he remembered something. He couldn't remember being a man of faith, but if he ever was one, he knew when he stopped. The Soldier Enhancement Program changed him, in his body of course, but also, about to die he realized, in his mind.

Something more than a man. A hero. A legend. And for a time, he was both. That time was long ago. That time was years past. For a long time, Jack had been what others made of him. He'd been what others saw in him. Always following orders, whether they came from Reyes, or the UN, or protocol. In the cell's silence, in Amelie's embrace, he thought about the choices he made for himself. Joining the army. Passing the Overwatch promotion. Two, his whole life in two choices. He turned his head, and with his nose so close to her hair, he couldn't help taking a smell, and she smelled nice. Three. He'd made three choices in his life.

And he paid for all of them.

"Can I tell you a dream I had?" Amelie already knew the answer. "I'm in my old house. It's dark out. Either twilight or some time tomorrow, I don't really know for sure, and it doesn't make a difference either way. I'm standing by the window just the same, looking outside. At the darkness. And I look up because I like watching the stars. It helps me take my mind off of all the things I'm worrying about. Gerard's safety. My own. Whether, maybe, he'll be here when I wake up in the morning, and long after he comes back before he leaves again. The starlight helps, but it can't keep my mind off of my fears forever, so I start thinking about them again. And I hear something. Far away. Booming. And I think to myself, tonight's the night. Maybe it's Reinhardt or Gabriel, maybe even Angela, coming to tell me my husband died. Maybe it's Talon, coming to do whatever they wanted to do to me. I have no way of knowing, all I can do is just be afraid. But for a long time, nothing happens. And the minutes of the night tick away, and I have to go to sleep, but I have too much to think. Sleeping pills, then. If I can't fall asleep on my own, I can take drugs to make it happen. Because the other thing is I think myself to death. So tonight's the night, the bad thing's going to happen. I put myself to sleep thinking that, but it doesn't. And I don't know this at the time, but I find out. I have someone watching over me. One night when no one else could. I can't pretend I don't know it was you. And I can't ignore what I thought, in the morning, that I heard you say. That you loved me."

"Jack," she continued, "I don't need to know whether or not you said it. I just want to know that, if you did, would you have meant it?"

His hand fell to her leg, little finger meeting the cold touch of the bench. He told himself once that it didn't matter, whether he meant it or not. That he didn't have a choice to act one way or the other, so whether he did what he did for her or for anything else didn't matter. That the most important thing was disappearing without a trace. Covering up Blackwatch, like he'd done countless times before. But that wrong. Because he came back the next night. Because he didn't let her die. Because he couldn't. "Yes," he breathed. Because in that moment, he meant it. In that moment, he loved her.

* * *

AN: Chronological sequence will be: 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, **8, 6, 7**

Next chapter is the long night.


	8. Chapter 8

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Chapter 8

* * *

In the new moon dark of night, Jack stood at his car, reverse tracing a signal from a bug that either Talon or, worse, a Blackwatch mole had planted on his car the previous night. Somewhere in Iceland, surrounded on all sides by the Atlantic Ocean. Jack sent a message to Jesse McCree, one of the two agents who reported directly to him, and who was right now closer to a database than he was. 'Check for assets in Iceland. Deploy. They're looking for a remote GPS receiver.' He put the communicator back, put the tracker in his pocket, and this time he came armed. This time, Talon knew he was here. This time, he accepted it wouldn't end quietly.

There'd be consequences, he reminded himself as he carried his supplies, his guns, his ammunition into the house. As soon as the first shot fired, and Jack at least resolved that the first shot and the last would be his, Blackwatch would be exposed. There would be a big legal fight about that in the years to come. Endless headaches for the people that used to be his family. Arrests and hearings, Jack didn't look forward to any of it, no one ever did. Executions, most likely. It could all be avoided, he reminded himself that as well. Picking up the last of his things from his car, he reminded himself the whole bog of blown secrets could be avoided.

He'd become a man of secrets over his years as the head of Blackwatch. Finding secrets, keeping secrets, acting on secret information. Once the secret was out, once Blackwatch was exposed, that was his while life, gone. And it was so simple. It could be so simple to keep this secret, and to keep on living his life of secrets. So simple, he knew. But in the glove compartment of his car, along with a spare handgun, he kept the invitation to Gerard and Amelie's wedding, even though he didn't attend. And Jack reminded himself again why he took the job. To do the right thing, when it was hard, when no one else could.

The light in the window was off. Amelie was sleeping easier tonight than yesterday. As Jack barged in, setting down the last case of shotgun shells and slugs, he suppressed the tinge of regret that he'd be waking her up for sure. He loaded his weapons, his automatic shotgun slung over his right shoulder, his automatic rifle tethered under his left arm, his automatic pistol holstered over his right pocket. And a very much not automatic anti-materiel sniper rifle, and he carried it all up to the empty bedroom upstairs, watching the most likely angle of approach from that second floor vantage point.

Door shut behind him, the little cracks stuffed and walls lined with whatever fabrics he could pull from around the house, he set in, night vision binoculars and rifle scope pointed out, watching the darkness. He took his communicator out, no word yet from McCree on Blackwatch assets in Iceland, which didn't bode well. Jesse couldn't be the mole... right? Ties to Deadlock, but they were defunct now. Possibly Los Muertos, but they weren't friendly with Talon, might not have even known Talon existed, and they didn't get along with American gangs at any rate. Certainly not former American gangbangers who turned to the right side of the law.

The right side, and the dark.

Jack sent a message to his other agent. Rodolfo Soto, formerly a law enforcement officer in Paraguay, with some SWAT experience, and local defense throughout the crisis. Paraguay wasn't the best place to pick up old cops, but Soto was the best of them. Jack had checked, he was clean, but he was starting to have doubts. Now. At the worst time. Still, there were no trucks in his field of view yet, so he typed his message. A short one. Soto was awake when McCree was asleep. Jack liked having his agents rotate shifts that way, less likely that they step on each others' toes, less likely they find out about each other.

'Where are you?' Jack asked him, and he got his reply in a matter of minutes. Minutes were precious. That was not fast enough.

'Murcia.' Soto was closer to an airport, better positioned to intervene in Iceland, if he had to do it personally. Which was looking more like a necessity every passing second. Jack racked his brain. There was a black site in Murcia. That was where he must have been.

Right?

'Check for assets in-' he stopped himself sending it. He changed it. 'Check for assets, tell me where they are.' This was ridiculous. He was letting his doubts get the better of him.

All of his intelligence requests were treated as high priority. They were all treated as time sensitive, because if Jack Morrison himself was asking for an asset's location, whatever he was dealing with usually was time sensitive. Usually, it was urgent. And this, the tracker Talon put on his car that he put in his own pocket, this was urgent. This was time sensitive. And it was a serious concern, but it was his job to be concerned. So that the people working for him wouldn't be. So they could focus on dealing with things, without worry weighing them down. All of his intelligence requests were treated as serious concerns. This should have been no different.

But Soto didn't respond.

Distant shadows shifted. Window open, the low hum of engines coming through, sounded like three armored trucks. Forty or fifty people incoming. Looking down the scope, he lined his shot. Right at the engine block. He squeezed the trigger. The smell of fire filled the air. Hot metal burned through the shadows, piercing the armor plating and engine metal of the leading armored truck. Jack lowered the gun a miniscule degree and fired again, another bang, another flash, another hole in the enemy machine.

Still nothing back on the communicator. Jack stashed it away, back to pelting the trucks, trying to disable them shot after shot. It was far too loud to expect Amelie to sleep through. As they approached, the two on the sides slowed and pulled away, the truck in the speeding straight ahead, too close to track with the heavy rifle anymore. Below, it crashed into the house, smashing through wood and stone as plaster, through the outer wall and it slammed into an inner wall as well. Jack stripped the magazine from the sniper rifle, gripped his shotgun and ran down the hall. Amelie's door was open.

They stood staring at each other for a second. "Jack?" she asked, still coming to her senses out of drowsiness and panic. "What's going on?"

He dropped the assault rifle from the sling on his left arm and slid it to her across the floor. "This is what your husband deals with. Can you handle a gun?" he said, and Amelie kneeled down, picked it up. Nodded. "Keep your eye on the window. If someone tries to come in that way, you shoot at them. Hit them, don't hit them, doesn't matter. If I hear you shoot, I'll come up, I'll deal with it. Okay?"

Her breathing was stressed. But she got it, "Okay." Amelie settled in to a corner of the room, far from the door, with a view of the window. Sat in for the long night. Jack closed the door and went downstairs, where an armored truck spewed gasoline from the holes in the engine block and tubing. The fuel and vapors crept into his nose, and each step he took was damp, and dreaded any hint of a spark. Driver side window rolled up.

The front living room was a wreck. Not a single thing intact, floor ripped up, everything trashed and thrown about by the collision. Debris from what was destroyed lay on the gas soaked carpet. Jack stepped through it, raised his weapon to the window and fired four blasts, shattering the glass apart, spraying blood and brains and flesh all around the lead pellets' path.

No return fire, neither from the people in the back, or the Talon soldiers in the trucks outside. Taking tense steps, Jack circled to the back of the crashed truck. The reinforced door was shut and locked. He looked for the toolbox and pulled out the hammer with the sturdiest looking claws to hack at the door, each swing breaking off the skin of his fingers. Blood trailed down his knuckles. He pulled open the door, sidearm drawn.

POP! POP! POP! echoing in the steel box. Three corpses, not of soldiers, but technicians. Jack cracked open one of the wooden crates to find what he recognized in an instant to be explosives. They were bomb technicians, and the truck was rigged to blow.

Overhead, distant, roaring, he heard a gunship approaching. Jack rushed back up the stairs, banging on the bedroom door. "It's Jack!" he said, mind on the incoming dropship. He knocked on the door again, at the same time Amelie opened it.

"What's going on now?" she asked, aware that something was wrong, though there wasn't much time to explain. They had to get out of here. Fast.

His pocket buzzed. Not now, Jack thought, and it buzzed again. And again, and he broke open the bedroom window with the hammer before tossing it aside. "They planted a bomb," he said, voice steady as it could be against the rush of chemicals in his blood. "We have to get out." He threw the shotgun outside. Beckoned for his rifle back, and he threw that out the window too. And when he extended his hand, she grabbed onto it. Jack held her tight, leaned out the window, dropped, and fell.

He slammed onto his back, squashed breaking her fall. Horrific cracking and crunching, broken bones, broken ribs, but nothing popped out. Jack's grip loosened, groping at the grass for the butt of one of his weapons, his mind screaming over the injuries and wounds to focus. His wounds would heal by the end of the night. The regenerative process was in his blood, and his blood was running.

Amelie had the wind knocked out of her, her face white, breathing short. Before her mind caught up with the leap of faith she just took, Jack rolled her over, rolled over her and off, and he tumbled to the side. Glass smashed beside her, and something light, small, and metal jingled in front of her face. Her injuries from the fall weren't severe, and they were fading, fast. Vigor returned to her as nanomachines crawled into her skin to repair the damage and harmlessly dispersed when the healing was done. "Jack?" her voice came lively. "Jack, are you okay?" The last few seconds caught up to her. The cracking and crunching sounds.

Only grunting in response, he climbed up onto his feet, propping himself up with the shotgun. "Yeah," he said, not exactly lying, but the strain of his voice was clear enough even for Amelie to pick up. She clasped her hands around the jingling metal. Keys. As she rose, he told her, "Take my car and go to the police." He pointed toward it, a useless gesture in total darkness. He pushed her that same direction.

Flat footed, she asked, "What do I -"

A plume of fire exploded from the house. What structure wasn't vaporized whined and shook with the blast wave. Scorching debris rained from the air, shrouded in smoke.

A pillar of light darted around the ground, and Amelie began running, clutching the keys until it cut to hold on harder. Jack aimed at the light, coming from a low altitude dropship, and fired shell after shell until he was empty, and he dropped it and ran for the rifle. Closer to the ground, the engines of the armored trucks roared the life, burning rubber rushing past him. Louder jet engines screamed overhead. Spotlight on him, left wing hatch opened, Talon's footsoldiers inside opened fire.

He dived for cover, crashing through the wall, into the inferno. Bursts of machine gun fire marked the seconds as he scanned the first floor. The stairs were a blazing wreck, but it was still the only way up. The climb tore at every bone and muscle in his body. His charred fingers plucked the machine pistol out of his pocket, and steady as he could, Jack crept into the upstairs bedroom, to the window, where the dropship hovered before. It wasn't there anymore.

The ship was circling the house like a shark, shining its search light inside. It was circling close and low and arrogant. As it came back around, Jack steadied his grip, squeezed the trigger the moment the open holding compartment came into view. In an instant, the grunts were riddled with holes, fallen and slain, and too few, Jack counted as the dropship zoomed high and away. He looked at the window for a moment, but there was no way he was jumping out again. Shoving another magazine into his pistol, he stepped into the hall, looking off to the bedroom on the side.

A booming shot ripped through the floorboards. Jack turned the sniper rifle, fired again. A third heavy shot. Through the splintered wooden holes, against the glow of fire, he could just make out the starburst pattern of splattered blood. He ran downstairs, sweeping up the first automatic weapon in his reach, and he bolted in the direction of his car only to find three sets of tire tracks that quickly converged onto the street.

Two trucks chasing a car. Jack pulled out his communicator and began testing frequencies for a secured police channel to crack into. He saw the earlier message. A false list of Blackwatch assets, which meant Soto wasn't in Spain. He reached in his other pocket, still tuning to different radio waves with his other hand, and he crushed the tracking bug. The comms device buzzed.

'What happened?'

He trudged to the side of the street, waving to any passing car while listening to the chatter on the police signal. Emergency Services was about to swarm the Lacroix house, police cruisers, fire trucks, ambulances. They weren't going to find anything until the Annecy police department got involved, and APD would begin an investigation, in which Jack was the prime suspect. And actual culprit, based on what he was hearing about a robbery case. Tonight only made things a lot worse, and when a good samaritan pulled over, Jack made it even worse, tossing the woman out of the car and hijacking it for the chase. He tossed the stolen assault rifle on the passenger seat.

This is fine, he told himself as he violated all the rules of the road, following only the radar reports about his own car and the Talon armored trucks. Driving madly, ignoring the near constant buzzing of exculpation, Jack sped after Amelie and Talon, realizing soon that they weren't bound for the police station. They'd gone off course. This is fine. They're going to a black site. And Jack was going to lead the police first responders into that mess, all for one woman's sake.

Reports of reckless driving, then a road rage, trickled in. He was getting their attention, though he didn't hear anything from the dispatcher. The cops were going to blame him for this, no doubt, even if he led them to Talon. There was plenty of blame to go around. With the bit of his mind he could spare, he thought about Soto's betrayal. The closest agent to him besides McCree. Vetted, just not enough.

The two trucks stopping moving, and a police helicopter sighted a woman being dragged into a hospital. A car that matched Jack's was seen not far away. The trucks were abandoned.

Squealing, the helicopter metal caved in and ruptured. Warped, twisted metal fell to the ground, a ring of shattered slag around the trucks that were rigged to explode.

* * *

It was useless squirming against her abductors. For the last hour, everything Amelie had done, everywhere she'd gone, she was either being dragged around or pushed at gunpoint. Most times both. She'd long since given up asking questions. Down sterile white hallways, she heard the echoes of "Hands up, heads down!" Hostages, doctors and nurses, even patients wherever the masked men could find them, being corralled into a room for holding. And with how barbaric the kidnappers have been so far, it was possible, even likely, they were being herded to their slaughter like cattle.

Echoing, echoing, one of the hostage takers was negotiating with the police. "You keep your perimeter tight. Nobody gets in or out. We release one hostage every ten minutes, through the front. Someone will be watching." Dragged around a corner, the negotiator's voice tapered off until she couldn't hear it anymore.

The cold metal of a suppressor jabbed her shoulder. "Upstairs," the masked man behind her said, and Amelie complied. Took each step slowly, as someone heavily armed rushed up in front of her. She walked up to the window, prodded at every step. The silencer poked past her head to the side of her right ear. "How's your sight?" her captor asked.

"It's..." she didn't know what to tell him. Her vision was good, but nothing outstanding.

The front end of the man's gun pointed down. "Think it's better than theirs?" His finger hovered over the trigger, aimed at the perimiter police crusiers. "There's a way to find out. What's out there?"

Amelie tore her eyes off the gun next to her. Hands on the windowsill, she steadied herself. For a moment, she considered jumping. No way to survive that one. She looked out at the lined up police cars, the officers all in a row behind cover. Exposed from above. Some of them were watching, weapons trained on the hospital's upper floor windows. She glanced back at the gun, followed its line. "Cop cars. Thirty, it looks like. Two officers per car." Her voice was shaky.

"What about not cops?" The masked man was concerned about something. He was worried about someone very specific. In that moment, he sounded as scared as she was. It was clear what he wanted her to look out for. Amelie leaned out, beyond the frame of the window to get a better field of view. Jack was nowhere to be found. He was good at that, when he needed to be. Now was one of those times.

She straightened her posture, stood upright to say, "He's not here." In the corner of her eye, she could see the gun trembling. Perturbed, the masked abductor took her to the other windows of the floor to check again, different angles, different intervals, different sides of the hospital. Her feet starting aching from marching back and forth without a sign of Jack. Not that she'd say even if she saw him. Amelie didn't have to be afraid of these people anymore. Just like spiders. They were already more afraid, with every reason to be. They were desperate to find Jack before he found them. Before he found her. The ground she had, she stood. Amelie had faith in him.

Overlooking the front of the hospital, the captor pushed her out to look again. She could see where the released hostages were gathered, couldn't make out one from another, couldn't get a clear count, but it was definitely them.

"Why's there a gap?" There was a hole in the perimeter of police squad cars, and a crackle came over the communication device in the masked man's pocket, someone muffled, screaming. He fumbled reaching to get it, shouting into it, "What's happening? Ground floor, what's happening?" He wrapped his arm around Amelie's neck, backed away from the windows and started towards the roof access stairway. "Ground team, come in!" But no one answered. He clicked a few buttons, "How are repairs going?"

"Almost ready," a calm and unaware voice replied.

"How soon?"

"Is it urgent?"

The crack of a bullet rang in the hall. The masked man fell, dead. Amelie untangled herself from his warm, deceased grasp and watched, wide eyed, as Jack put his gun down and walked twoard her. She sprang up. She grabbed the back of his head, held him tight and close as she kissed him. It wasn't the time. They weren't out of this mess yet, but that felt like only a matter of time now. The night was near its end. Gently, he pushed her off, and without a word, they both knew. She was about to apologize, that something came over her, that she shouldn't have done that. She was about to apologize for the entire long night, and he knew it.

"Don't," he told her, heavy and solemn. There was nothing to apologize for and there was work left to be done. A moment was all they could spare, and they took it, and it was time to move on. Time to survive the night. And Jack would carry this moment with him, as he changed clothes with the kidnapper. He would carry this moment to the grave, though he couldn't know it, never would know it. Would never admit to himself, he thought, that he'd live the rest of his life wishing he kissed her back.

* * *

AN: Chronological sequence will be 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 8, 6, 7, 9 (and epilogue)

Last chapter to be posted by Tuesday.


	9. Chapter 9, end

"A Soldier of the Night"

by Age of Tesla

Finale

* * *

A translucent yellow fluid reflected Mercy's face as it filled the syringe. It reflected a grave visage, an uncertainty and a fear for the future. An assuredness of purpose in the moment. Angela had done procedures like this - not just like this, but close - countless times over the years. She'd given harder operations, one surgery op so complex it kept her wide awake and on constant chemical stimulants for a week straight. On the surface, pushing the needle into Commander Morrison's near dead body was no different, but his body made it different.

The electric humming rang in her ears. Mercy looked onto a screen with Morrison's vital readings. All of them as low as could be expected. Clinically, he was dead. And that was the point. But now, she was bringing him back.

In the moment it took her to reach for the next needle and the next vial, Mercy wondered whether he knew this was going to happen. He must have. There was no way she'd have been cleared to do it otherwise. Only, she recalled his last words, and how it sounded like a dying man, a dying patient, coming to terms with the end.

"How's Sarah?"

"She died. She died a long time ago."

"Then I'll see her soon."

Whoever Sarah was, it wasn't any of Mercy's business. But if she was the last thing on Jack's mind, she must have been special. Mercy shook her head. Gave the next chemical injection. If she started thinking about that, there was no telling when she'd stop. She was a romantic at heart, but right now, she had to be focused. Patients always came first. The vitals reader beeped to life.

His last words were so convincing. He couldn't have approved, couldn't have known about this and still thought about a woman who'd passed away. But he was a secret keeper. He'd known more things than Mercy ever would - more than most of the world ever would unless it came to light. And although Gabriel was the one born in Los Angeles, he always said Jack was the better actor. It all threw her for a loop. Maybe he could have been faking it.

Vitals were climbing to normal human conditions. Slowly, but they were getting there. She'd seen this pattern once before and never forgot it. And she knew exactly how long to wait before pinching Jack's thigh to test for a reaction. Nothing. His body still hadn't moved yet. She pressed further up on him. His torso. His shoulder, collarbone. Her fingertips went for the steel wire wrapped around his neck. She tugged at it.

A hand shot up. It clutched her throat, squeezing tight as the rest of Jack's body sprang into motion. Upright.

Mercy grabbed his wrist, strained to pull it off and free herself. But his grip was too tight. "Jack," she choked out.

"Let her go." His hand immediately dropped. Mercy looked to the corner of the room, blinking, remembering the operating room door hadn't been opened in a day. Gabriel was still inside.

"You said 'lethal injection'!" Morrison growled.

"I know what I said." Gabe paused, had no idea how to explain this. "Angela, you can go."

"Was this her idea? Or yours?"

The door shut behind her on the way out. "Mine," Gabriel said.

"Why?"

"The world still needs you, Jack."

"What for?"

"Talon wasn't the end of it. Neither was Blackwatch. The problems, they're happening again."

"So where's the end? That's what this is about, right? Ends justify the means. But where's the end? I can't keep being the reaper. I can't keep cutting out the bad seeds. You have to plant something better. Or else it'll never end."

"But in the mean time, we need you. Whether that something better is growing or not, it's better with you than without."

"I'm done searching the shadows. You tell me right now who I need to kill, and I'll do it. Otherwise, I'm out. Done."

"Youssef Al-Fassi. He's hiding out in Tangier, by the time you get there, if he hears anything, he can get to Fez. He's got no friends in Fez. No informants, no eyes on the street, nothing. Just a safe house. More likely? He stays in Tangier. Get him there."

"And after this guy? This exactly what I'm talking about. Problems on top of problems. What happened to heroes?"

"There are all kinds of heroes, Jack. What you do, you don't call that heroism?"

"No, I don't. And I never will again. Heroism spreads. Heroes are the people the world watches, the people the world tries to be. Something better. I'm no hero. And in here, neither are you. Get back out there. Be a hero. Inspire people. That new girl I talked to. From England. She's got the right idea."

"She hasn't seen this side of things."

"No one should have to. This side of things shouldn't have to happen. But it does. We shouldn't be proud of that."

"So get to it. Do this, so that no one else has to."

"So that everyone else can do better. And change the world. Make things better, so one day, maybe I can give it a rest. So how about it? When's that day coming?"

"I don't know."

"You brought me back from the dead, Gabe." Jack got up to leave. "If I'm going to keep at this, I need a lot better than 'I don't know'."

* * *

Epilogue

The moon was waning, almost gone tonight. In the nursery of their new home, Amelie held her sleeping infant son close to her chest, by the open window. The light breeze of the nighttime cold was blowing in, pushing softly against her tied up hair. She thought she heard something sputtering in the night, distant, faint, and fading. She lowered the boy into the crib and kissed him good night. In the dresser in the bedroom she shared with her husband, Amelie kept a handgun in a safe. In what time he could spare, he asked Gerard to help her keep their home safe from intruders. For most of the year, when she wasn't in labor, she trained to shoot. Sometimes on her own, sometimes with whoever could spare the time.

She'd gotten good at shooting. Stopped missing so much from all the way across the firing range, so for all the distances in the house, Amelie was a sure shot. She crept downstairs, to the front door, advancing slowly, checking every angle she could think of. In silent stride, she swept the entire bottom floor and found no one. A gleam of reflected moonlight shined in her eye when she opened the door to check outside.

She circled around the house, worried that someone might be watching her. It felt like someone was watching her, someone far away. It felt like she was safe. Amelie got back to the front door, noticed the moonlight gleam off something hanging on the doorknob. A steel piano wire she recognized.

He was out there. Somehow, he lived. He came back for her.


End file.
